Dueling Dungeons (Rogue Dungeon 5) - Chapter Thirteen (Patreon)

Makeshift Resistance

The shimmering purple of the mass portal receded as Lowen stepped through onto healthy green grass. All around him, armor clanked and creaked and wings rustled as his forces followed him out into the strangely restrained sunshine of the Other World. It was as if a smoky film hung in the sky, and the air stank of salts and chemicals Lowen wasn’t familiar with. Stone buildings lined paved roads that stretched away in all directions, and monstrous horseless carriages roared past, just as he’d been warned by his spies.

This was Lowen’s first trip to the Other World. It was a tad disorienting. However, there laid in front of him a village green with the Dev’s Frontflip Studios palace at the far edge, and paved walking paths and decorative ponds between, just as shown in the WikiLore painting. This was the right place.

Just as his spies had reported, there wasn’t a gate, archer hole, or castle guard to be seen. Massive windows made of huge plates of glass unbroken by reinforcement, and multiple entrances wide enough to bring a cavalry charge through lined each wall. Even the stairs leading up to the doors were low and smooth enough to accommodate enemy entry. It was almost as if the builders had designed the place to crumble at the first sign of attack. Madness. Was this world at such peace that its builders gave not even a single thought to defense? If that was so, it would make a valuable addition to Marek’s collection. If it could be taken so easily, then even if it was entirely devoid of magicks, Marek would be a fool to leave it untouched.

“That’s the last of ’em, sir,” Darith said, clanking up to him in shining silver and gold plate mail. “Everybody’s through.”

Lowen dropped the pieces of the mass portal stone, releasing the spell. The violet tear between dimensions disappeared with an audible snap. He turned to his small army, thirty deep.

“Take up your castle-storming positions,” he ordered, raising his voice so those at the edges could hear. “Crash in with as much noise and intimidation as you can muster, destroy what you want, but leave a few of the Devs alive. We need them to reverse the soulbinding ritual.”

Lowen turned back to the Devs’ palace, drawing his Legendary Bastard Sword of the Morning Star. It radiated Divine magick, and the shining blade rang with a thin, resonating note. In his free hand, he prepared the cast for a devastating blast of Divine Missiles.

Behind him, dozens of Malaika Heralds readied spells and drew swords, bows, axes, and shields. It was an impressive sight to be sure. When Lowen eventually crushed Roark and returned to Traisbin in this form, his fellow countrymen would stand in awe of him. A creature elevated above mere mortals, with no more need for the distinctions of ‘common’ or ‘noble’. He would be as a god.

Stretching out his speckled brown and white wings, Lowen gave a shout and launched himself into the filmy sky. Accompanying shouts joined his, along with thunderous wingbeats.

With a flick of his wrist, Lowen unleashed Divine Missiles on the closest wall of the palace. Brilliant golden lights streaked from his fist. A dozen similarly destructive spells joined his, screaming toward the flimsy stone and glass.

But in the moment before impact, the doors of the palace were flung wide. Men and women wielding glinting blades, painted war clubs, and short bows of unusual shape and build charged out into the oily sunlight.

“Blanketing Counterblast!” a man in bizarre, padded armor and caged face plate shouted, raising a flat, bent wooden staff with Mighty Ducks emblazoned across its black wrappings—surely some sort of spell form, though one Lowen was unfamiliar with.

A pale orange dome flashed over the small group, blocking much of the front wall of the palace. Nearly all of Lowen’s Divine Missiles and the myriad other Malaika spells which had just been cast slammed into the ward, detonating harmlessly on impact.

A few, however, skirted past the edges of the pale orange barrier and exploded in a shower of brick and glass. The small defending force flinched, and a few shrieked in fear.

“Hold the line, POSes!” roared a man in front of the defending force. He wore barely any armor, and he carried a smooth club with the words Louisville Slugger painted down the side. “These little bitches got nothing on us!”

As if to prove his point, he stepped outside the protective dome and leveled a gloved hand at Lowen. With a shout, lightning crackled from the man’s upraised palm in a brilliant blue-white arc. The Elemental Fury utilized by Rangers and Clerics alike.

Lowen barrel-rolled, narrowly avoiding the shot, and triggered Retribution Blast.

The Cleric tried to dodge, but he was too slow. The searing white flash landed square on his chest. His shoes gritted against the paving as the impact shoved him backward.

But the blast didn’t burn him to ashes. In fact, the Cleric didn’t even lose his footing.

Spidery white text flashed across Lowen’s vision.

[PwnrBwner007 has resisted Retribution Blast!]

The Cleric looked down at his chest, as surprised as Lowen.

“Balls yeah!” He held up the middle finger on his spellcasting hand and turned it toward Lowen. “Blessed Protection of the Light, dickbird! Divine spells can’t touch me!” He glanced over his shoulder at his fellow defenders. “I told you losers, even the passives work here!”

“Let’s do this!” The woman wielding the strange black bow stepped forward and loosed a broadhead with brightly colored fletching.

The arrow sliced through one of Darith’s wings, tearing out a puff of feathers in passing, sending him wheeling through the air as he tried to catch himself.

As one, the defending force roared furious war cries and sent gales of spells rocketing at Lowen’s Heralds. The Heralds returned fire while trying to evade the shots. Arrows, spears, lances, and flashes of light ripped out in retaliation.

Scowling, Lowen beat at the air with his wings, gaining height and a better view of the battlefield. His fellow Heralds rolled through the sky, throwing ranged spells and darting in whenever they saw an opening. Some few like Darith, who’d taken damage to the wings, had even landed in the upstarts’ midst and were now embroiled in close-quarter combat with swords and clubs.

Lowen cursed.

He would have expected some idiotic surprise like this from a stronghold held by that von Graf trash, but this… This was all wrong. Von Graf held no sway over this Other World, and there should have been no magick at all except what the Heralds had brought with them. On that the scouts had been very clear. This world used their own peculiar brand of power, but not magicks as Lowen knew them. There should have been nothing standing between Lowen and the Frontflip Studios palace. They should simply have burst through the doors and taken the Devs’ home in their fist, yet here they stood entangled with a surprisingly effective resistance force.

If the spies who’d reported on this place weren’t currently trying for all they were worth to break through this opposition, Lowen would have burnt them alive for failing to note these motley upstarts.

“Aw yeah!” the man with the bent wooden staff yelled as golden light surrounded him in a nimbus. “Level up! Eat Double Shield Wall, douchebags!”

Orange light flashed again, and thunder rolled like war drums. The closest Heralds in the air were slammed backward, a few of them knocked to the ground by the concussive force of the blast.

“Grave Grasp!” The woman with the bow stopped shooting arrows for long enough to cast a flash of green light from her fist.

The grassy earth erupted with glowing rotting hands, their grasping fingers clutching the boots and armor of the downed Heralds, forcing the winged combatants to hack the hands off before they could retake their flight advantage. Even as they struggled, she conjured a glowing cloud of malignant green energy that settled over the grounded forces. Lowen heard screams of anguish as his men clawed at their faces and fruitlessly tried to clear the green fog with their beating wings. Clearly some sort of Necrotic Undead attack.

Lowen glowered. That power was disgustingly effective against the Heralds. She should be dealt with immediately. Unfortunately, her Undead alignment would render any Divine spell he threw at her ineffective. He would have to fall back on the less powerful, but more likely to succeed spells.

Lowen carved through the air toward the palace steps, pulling his Divine Spell Book. In a heartbeat, the archer nocked another arrow and tapped the shaft with a finger. Its black length burst into roiling green flame.

She trained the deadly steel broadhead on him.

Lowen threw out his wings, pulling up from the dive and fired off the Level 9 Fireball at her. At the same moment, she loosed the Undead-laced arrow. He dodged the shaft, but it was a near thing.

His Fireball should have slammed into her face and burnt her alive the next moment. It was a base offensive spell, not aligned with any particular magick. But a grinning Death’s Head Shield materialized out of nowhere in front of her, taking the fiery impact.

“That’s cute,” the archer mocked, training another arrow on him. “I remember when I thought beginner spells were cool.”

“Cut the cutesy banter and get your ass closer to the door, tots!” The Cleric paused his attacks long enough to snap at her. “Rangedmeans you don’t have to be right in the middle of shit where we’ve got to worry about you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” the archer answered, backing up and kicking open a door with her boot.

“What are we waiting for, tanks?” the Cleric yelled, throwing a double-fisted cast of Elemental Fury at the grounded Heralds. “Screamo pulled their wings off for you, go do tank shit already! Hulk-smash these fuckers!”

Over the last several weeks, Lowen had grown used to the strange words the heroes in Hearthworld called themselves. He knew the word “tanks” referred to powerful fighters who could take immeasurable physical damage. Often they were enormous, overly muscular, and decked out in heavy armor.

The men who answered the Cleric’s call resembled nothing of the sort. One was hugely overweight, another thin enough to verge on skeletal, and a third in strange if pristine clothing. Rather than the usual slow two-handed weapons, these men wielded sticks, clubs, and a dull-looking sword. Hardly the powerful weapons of the most formidable heroes Hearthworld had to offer. By that time, the green necrotic fog faded and dispersed. The grounded Heralds—wounded and bleeding—braced themselves and raised their own weapons the best they could, but Lowen knew they should be able to tear these supposed tanks apart without even trying.

The pristine man gave a booming shout, the sound rippling out in a visible ring. Suddenly the three of them were surrounded in a pulsing bloody aura. They crashed into the grounded Heralds, swinging wildly with their odd assortment of weapons. Right and left red health bars flashed, the tanks carving off huge slices of vital life while they took only minimal return damage. Even the dull blade wielded by the fat man snatched away life, dealing blunt force trauma because it wasn’t sharp enough to cut.

As the tanks attacked the grounded Heralds, the woman with the strange black bow began picking them off from the palace stairs. Her fellow defenders focused on repelling and attacking the Heralds still in the air.

A spell lanced past Lowen’s wing, ruffling the feathers.

“Hells,” he muttered.

This was going awry fast. Somehow, even with his overestimation, he had come with too few attackers. He couldn’t afford another failure. Marek had made that abundantly clear. And this was certainly a failure. They were heavenly creatures with magicks unseen in all of Traisbin, and they were being turned away by slovenly men and women who couldn’t even bother to wear proper armor. Not a single word of this could get back to Marek or Lowen knew he would be undone.

As much as he hated to admit it, Lowen needed reinforcements. Hundreds of them—thousands if he could lay hands on that many. But to do so, he would need to hold this place.

“Surround the palace,” he roared to his troops, darting down through the chaos.

Until he could bring down the wrath of a host of Heralds on these bloody upstarts’ heads, he would have to lay siege to Frontflip Studios. What a bloody mess. He couldn’t quite set hands on how, but this stank of that cur von Graf’s scheming.

“Cut off every avenue of escape!” Lowen bellowed, anger surging through him in waves. “No one leaves! Not a soul!”